The Ranger’s gaze, though, had followed Nick’s down to his leg, and he swore. Morgan frowned, his eyes narrowing as he studied the wet cloth legging. “Your boot?”
“Lori put it in the bedroll.”
Morgan Davis hesitated, and Nick realized how exhausted the man was. The Ranger rarely hesitated. Or forgot anything. His strength must be depleted. Nick didn’t know how he had made it this far.
The Ranger finally spoke. “Get your sister, I’ll fetch some wood inside.”
Nick shook his head. “I don’t think you can. I’ll do it. There’s some cut on the side. I was here last spring. The bottom logs should be dry.” He limped to the door, then paused. “I can be more help if you take off these handcuffs.”
The Ranger shook his head. “She must be getting cold,” he prodded.
“I saved your damned life,” Nick exploded.
“After you took my gun. Your word is worth about as much as I expected,” Davis said. “And it was your sister who nearly killed me. I don’t owe you a damn thing.”
Davis started to slump. He closed his eyes for a moment, and Nick thought about trying to jump him, but the eyes opened again, studying Nick coolly. Nick shook off the tempting thought. Lori would be going crazy outside. And Morgan Davis surely couldn’t last much longer like this—even though he appeared to have more than the cat’s fabled nine lives.
Nick moved out the door. Lori had dismounted, waiting for rescue. It was nearly black out now, the only color provided by the white snow, which continued to fall in thick flakes. Nick limped out to her.
“Nick?”
“I don’t think you need to worry about the Ranger,” he said bitterly. He unbuckled the saddle slowly, hindered by the handcuffs. He grabbed part of it as it started to fall, keeping it from jerking Lori off her feet She looked at him, and he managed what he hoped was a reassuring smile. “He still doesn’t trust us,” he said with dry understatement.
He helped her into the cabin. The saddle was heavy but usually wouldn’t have been a problem for her; now, though, she was exhausted and cold, her fingers nearly frozen. He helped her lower the saddle as she, by necessity, sat on the floor. “I’ll get some wood,” Nick said.
The dark figure in the corner made no comment, merely watched every movement. Nick made his way back out again. He could barely move now; every step was agonizing. There were a few logs outside the cabin, wood he’d cut months ago when he had stayed there. He gathered some twigs and branches for kindling, then scooped up several logs in his arms, balancing them precariously with his manacled hands. He had to get a fire going, to bring some heat for Lori and himself.
He could care less about the goddamn Ranger. The more he thought about it, the more he wished he had left the man in the snow to die, as slowly as possible.
Nick carried several armloads of wood inside, slammed the door closed, and set several logs in the hearth of the fireplace. He stacked them. “I don’t have magic fire,” he said sarcastically to the figure in the corner.
The Ranger tossed a match at him, and Nick struck it against the hearth. The flame struggled at first, then flared toward the logs. None of the three in the cabin moved until the logs glowed, and heat radiated, and all of them moved toward the warmth together—reluctantly, but without choice. They needed that warmth to live.
Nick sprawled in front, taking off his gloves, then unpeeling the wrapping around his leg. His bedroll was buckled to the saddle he’d just brought in, and Lori was already unrolling it with her free hand, silently handing him a blanket to rub and dry the leg. She drew the other one around her, moving as close to the fire as she could get, reveling in its warmth, almost forgetting for a moment the man who sat on the one cot in the room. He was as apart, as detached, as ever. A chasm yawned between them, and tension crackled more furiously than the new fire a few feet away.
Morgan knew he was hanging on by a thin thread. Only that part of him that was sheer tenacity had responded to Nick Braden outside in the snow. The sound of Braden’s voice kept echoing in Morgan’s consciousness. As did the nagging question of why the man had bothered. Because he’d needed the keys to the handcuffs? That was the only thing that made sense. Morgan said thanks to whatever part of him had decided to hide those keys. The hat was next to him now, saved by the leather thongs that he’d knotted under his chin during the storm.
He looked around him. They were all on the edge of exhaustion, the girl and Braden as much as he. Braden had been right. They wouldn’t have survived out there. He wouldn’t have survived out there. And even now they needed food, and he knew something had to be done for the horses. So much to do, and he was so tired, not to mention the constant, burning agony of his shoulder.
But first he let the warmth seep through his wet clothes, fill the cabin, which was unexpectedly well built The sparsely furnished room was small, and it retained the heat radiated by the fire. He was on the only bed, and that was nothing more than a rough wood platform anchored on four wood stumps. It was obviously fashioned to keep the occupant off the cold floor, and nothing more. Everything else was gone, stolen or burned for firewood.
Rough as the bed was, it was inviting. Anything was inviting. So tempting just to lay his head down.
Food first And then secure his prisoners. But how? There was not a damn thing to use. And he knew how badly he needed sleep. Rest.
As warmth replaced some of the cold in his body, he started to feel a corresponding strength. He regarded his companions. Nick Braden was sprawled lengthwise in front of the fire. Lori was huddled next to him, her hat gone, lost someplace in the snow, and her hair still damp. Her head had dropped to the saddle, and her form looked fragile, defenseless. Only the pain in Morgan’s shoulder reminded him how deadly she could be.
His gaze met Braden’s in the firelight, the only light now in the cabin. Christ, there was so much that needed to be done. Two exhausted cripples and an even more exhausted woman. “The horses need shelter, and there’s coffee in my supplies.” Morgan said. “And some food.”
Braden sat still for a moment, then pulled his boot from the bedroll. He’d laid his sock on the hearth, and he felt it now—still damp but warm. He pulled it on and then tried the boot on his swollen ankle. It hurt like hell, but he finally forced it on. “There’s a lean-to in back where the horses will have some protection.” Anger had drained from his voice, replaced by flat practicality.
“How long will this storm last?” Morgan disliked asking the question, betraying his own unfamiliarity with this part of the country. Braden, he knew, had been there frequently.
Braden shrugged. “Two days, maybe three. It’s early for a prolonged bad storm here.”
Morgan sighed. With his luck on this job, the storm would last for weeks. He rose and nodded for Braden to go out ahead of him. Braden braced himself, then opened the door, and the cabin was filled with a roaring wind. Morgan stepped out behind him and closed the door.
He headed for his horse, took the rifle from the scabbard, along with saddlebags he tossed over his good shoulder. He held on to those but dropped his bedroll next to the cabin door. With unspoken understanding Braden unbuckled Morgan’s saddle, dragging it and a sack of the supplies to the door of the cabin and leaving them there. The two of them then led the three horses to the lean-to and tethered them there.
Morgan followed Nick back into the cabin. He put the rifle and his saddlebags holding Nick’s and Lori’s guns at the back of the cot Then he sat, fighting pain that kept trying to pull him back again into the luxury of unconsciousness.
As Braden made coffee, Morgan took off his jacket and shirt. The bandage was soaked with blood. Braden took one of the cups they’d been using, wordlessly heated some water from a canteen, and passed it to him. Morgan carefully took off the bandage, setting his jaw to keep from uttering a groan.
But Lori wasn’t as contained. “Dear God,” she whispered. Then pleaded, “Let me help.”
He grimaced. “No,” he said abruptly. �
�I’ve had worse.”
“Please.”
“So you can finish what you started?” he said in what sounded like a low growl, even for him. “No thanks.”
She sat up, and her face glowed with concern in the flames. Part of him wanted to believe in her, but he couldn’t He wished she didn’t look so damn pleading and vulnerable … and pretty. She had no right to look like that after what they’d been through. He thought of those hands on him, what they would feel like if they were gentle and soothing. But nothing about her, he reminded himself, was gentle. That kiss had been a lie. A trap.
He busied himself trying to clean the wound, catching the smothered groans in his throat He couldn’t afford infection now. He needed this snowbound time to regain his strength. Then they could resume the journey, and he could prefer charges against Lorilee in the first town they came to. He would drop them later, when he knew she could be no more trouble. In the meantime, he had to be on guard.…
He finally finished and bandaged his shoulder again, pulled on his shirt and jacket for warmth, and sat back, watching Braden, limping badly, pour coffee and distribute some hardtack and jerky he’d dug from the supply bag. His prisoner then collapsed in front of the fire. Lori said very little, just took the small offerings and ate and drank silently. Occasionally her gaze found him, and she would stare intently at his shoulder. Then she would turn away. She was, no doubt, wishing she had been more accurate. Still, Morgan found himself missing her sass and defiance.
When they had finished the sparse meal, the room was warmer and the coffee heated their insides. They were all near collapse—he more than the others, he suspected. He took the handcuff key he’d slipped from his hat while Braden was busy and threw it to her. “Do you need to get some exercise?”
Her face reddened slightly, but she nodded and unlocked her hand from the saddle horn, even as Braden looked at Morgan with chagrin. Morgan knew he was wondering how he had missed the keys.
“Do I get some exercise, too?” Braden asked mockingly.
“When she returns,” Morgan said with equanimity. “You can bring in some more wood with you.”
“And then what?” Braden asked.
Morgan knew exactly what he was asking. This was a very small room. There were weapons in it. There was a wounded man and two prisoners who would like nothing better than to subdue that wounded man. And they both knew Morgan had to get some sleep.
Braden lifted his manacled wrists. “Don’t do this to her,” he said. “I’ve asked damned little of anyone until …” He hesitated, then continued slowly, “But I’m asking this.” It was the first time Braden had shown any feeling, and Morgan’s gut tightened. He sensed how much it had cost the man to make that request of him. Braden and he were alike in that way; they abhorred asking favors and were very good at hiding what they thought.
But Morgan didn’t feel he had a choice. He simply didn’t trust either of the Bradens, promise or not. Not after the kiss. Not after the ambush.
“No,” he said simply.
Braden’s jaw worked. “Your damn pride, Davis? A woman shot you?”
“Ambushed, Braden. Let’s be precise. I don’t give ambushers a second chance.”
“She could have killed you. She’s that good.”
Morgan merely lifted an eyebrow in disbelief.
Braden swore under his breath, then looked directly at Morgan. “I’ll kill you someday, Davis.”
“You’ll try,” Morgan said, wishing he understood that nagging ache that remained in his gut.
CHAPTER NINE
Lori squirmed miserably between the blankets. She was head to Nick’s feet, her right wrist handcuffed to his leg irons. Nick’s hands were bound behind his back with the second pair of handcuffs. The infernal Ranger had found the one way to keep them both helpless while he slept. There was no way they could move more than a few inches.
As the fire had waned and the floor had grown colder, even under the four blankets she and Nick shared, her guilt and sympathy for the Ranger faded rapidly. She was beginning to regret not aiming for the heart, after all. She tried not to remember that as uncomfortable as she and Nick were, the Ranger had to be even more so.
Lori heard the Ranger’s slow, labored movements as he rose from the cot She didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of seeing her turn toward him, so she just listened as he picked up several logs and put them on the fire, then retreated back to the cot It creaked as he settled down again with a slight groan.
Nick moved restlessly next to her. He had to be hurting with his hands pinned behind him and his injured leg still encased in that boot. The Ranger had hesitated briefly, but then had ordered Nick to fasten the leg iron around his swollen ankle.…
Still, Nick had slept for a while. She had heard his regular breathing, felt his stillness. And she must have dozed. They had all been so tired, fighting the storm. Fighting each other. “Nick?” she whispered.
“I’m all right,” he said, moving now that he knew she was awake. He shifted his weight again. “Try to get some sleep.”
She listened for the soft snore of the Ranger. She wanted to say more, but she was afraid she would wake the man a few feet away. There was no way she could lean toward Nick, or Nick toward her, or they would lose the blankets, and then there would be no way of replacing them. She silently repeated every one of the curses she’d ever heard Nick utter. She’d never run into anyone like Morgan Davis before. He was pure heartless iron, and eyes that had mellowed in Laramie had turned as cold as the wind outside.
Lori tried not to think of the kiss in the hotel hallway, of that momentary warmth that was now gone forever. He wouldn’t forgive what she had done, that was clear enough, and though she didn’t believe he purposely exacted revenge on Nick, his increased caution meant even more trouble for her brother.
She wished she could sleep. She was stiff with remaining so still, because she hadn’t wanted to disturb what little sleep Nick was able to get, what little respite from his misery he could manage. She wondered whether it was still snowing, and whether they would be forced to stay together like this much longer. The tension between them had been so thick last night, she’d thought the cabin would explode with it.
“Don’t worry,” she heard Nick whisper. “It will be all right”
But Lori had the terrible feeling that nothing would be right now, not ever again. Nothing would ever be as it once was. After that kiss, with her conscious decision to shoot Morgan Davis, she had lost an innocence she knew she would never regain, a belief in herself that was gone forever. And she knew she would never again see in his eyes what she had seen those few nights ago.
She wondered whether the overwhelming sense of loss would ever go away.
On the third day in the cabin, Morgan thought he would go crazy if they couldn’t leave soon. Physically he felt better, and he knew his shoulder was mending faster than he had any right to expect after the punishment he had given it that first day of the storm.
But another day in the cabin with Lori and Nick Braden, and he would be likely to go out and shoot himself and be finished with the misery.
He wished like hell they would at least complain about their treatment, but Nick had said nothing more about Lori, obviously feeling it would do no good and unwilling to abase himself again. He’d never complained for himself, though Morgan knew from his tired eyes he was unable to sleep at night and that the leg iron bit painfully into his ankle. Still, Morgan saw no remedy for it. He needed rest. He had to have it And the reason he needed it was the Bradens.
And Lori, he knew, was too damn proud to complain. He saw it in the way she lifted that charming little chin every time he bedded them down for the night, almost daring him to relent. During the day he gave them some freedom. He allowed Lori to move around at will, though he kept the handcuffs and leg irons on Nick Braden. Nick, he knew, was the danger now, especially since Morgan had regained only a portion of his original strength.
Morgan allowed Lor
i to go out alone, but he always took Nick with him when either of the men had to attend to personal needs, bring in wood or snow to melt for water, or tend the horses. The snow was still falling heavily, sometimes so hard it was difficult to keep sight of his prisoner. And drifts made walking precarious for both of them. And so the three were forced to tolerate each other in the cabin. Nick spent much of the time playing the harmonica until Morgan wanted to throw it into the fire. But he also understood it was the only thing the man had right now, and so Morgan simply gritted his teeth and suffered it.
But Lori drove him especially crazy. She would sing as Braden played in the evening, both of them hunched on the floor before the fireplace, their faces silhouetted by the flames. Braden’s face was too hauntingly like his, and Lori’s, so bewitching as she sang of love gained and lost, made his damned loins ache with such intensity, the pain in his shoulder paled by comparison. He wanted to reach out and grab her, to kiss her again, even knowing how dangerous she was. And he loathed himself for that weakness.
Despite his contemptuous words about treachery, he respected her. He admired loyalty more than any other quality. He had fought three long years for a cause he didn’t believe in, simply because of his oath to the Rangers. When his company was transferred to the Confederate Army, he believed he had no choice but to fight, and fight he did, with all the skill he had. He understood doing things one normally wouldn’t do, out of a greater loyalty. He had battled his own conscience often enough, but a man was nothing if not faithful to a set of rules he believed in.
He had never believed that philosophy applied to women, too, or maybe he just hadn’t thought about it. Morgan had seen the regret, even pain, in her eyes whenever her gaze had lingered on his shoulder. Still, he would never trust her. He knew that she, like him, would do what was necessary to accomplish her purpose—freeing her brother.
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